Parents are rightly concerned about vaccinations for their children to prevent the swine flu (H1N1) or the seasonal flu.  These are medical decisions.  If you have joint legal custody with a co-parent, then vaccination ought to be agreed upon by both parents.

“Legal custody” carries with it the right and obligation to make long range decisions involving education, religious training, discipline, medical care, and other matters of major significance concerning the child’s life and welfare. “Joint legal custody” means that both parents have an equal voice in making those decisions, and neither parent’s rights are superior to the other. In any child custody case, the paramount concern is the best interest of the child.  Taylor v. Taylor, 306 Md. 290, 508 A.2d 964. (1986).

If you disagree, you may want to speak together with your pediatrician or a mediator, and try to come to an agreement together.  Thanks to Kysa Crusco for bring this up on her blog.  Here is the latest flu news in Maryland.

Every judge sees it differently. If the judge’s father abandoned his family and the judge’s mother slaved day and night to help her son through law school, then the judge will have a hard time understanding why a father should have custody. The mother does not have an automatic edge in litigation. Fathers win in a lot of litigated cases.

There are certain doctrines and presumptions (but not inflexible rules or requirements) which aid the court in determining the best interest of the child:

1. Parental rights. Parents must be shown to be unfit before the children will be given to someone else, such as grandparents.

2. Continuity of placement. If children are doing well where they are, do not mess things up by moving them.

3. Children’s preference. A judge will consider who the children want to live with. The judge may talk to the child in private and may talk to a child younger than fourteen years of age. The judge is not bound by what the child wants.

4. Other. The court can consider the custodian’s age, health, wealth, religious beliefs, conduct, type of home, psychological evaluations; the location of the residences of the child’s siblings; the child’s school performance; or anything else the court considers important.
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